The inbound marketing It is a sales methodology focused on digital channels that uses various digital marketing techniques to get potential customers through valuable content.
In this content, I will explain what is inbound marketing and how a user-centric strategy works. At the end of this reading you will know concepts such as: buyer person, buyer journey, fly wheel and its role within inbound marketing. Are you ready to see how this methodology can improve your company’s digital marketing strategy? Let’s go! 🤓
What is inbound marketing?
The inbound marketing focuses on attracting consumers with valuable and useful content to answer their questions, needs or problems. This means that it is focused on the user; unlike other invasive marketing strategies -such as those used in outbound marketing- that focus on the product or service.
With this methodology, costs are optimized because companies take advantage of user needs and offer them information, resources or experiences to satisfy them. Consequently, companies increase confidence and sales speed up. He takes great relevance in the inbound methodology.
It sounds simple, but creating a inbound marketing strategy It takes time and effort, it is a medium and long-term process. However, companies have confirmed its effectiveness, becoming one of the trending marketing methodologies of the moment.
What is inbound marketing for?
Inbound marketing is used to obtain leads or contacts from potential customers, to nurture or mature them and, finally, reduce the acquisition costs of the sales obtained through this methodology.
It is a way of helping the user to reach, in a natural and organic way, what may be the solution to their needs. In a nutshell, inbound marketing serves to attract, instead of chasing or bombarding consumers with our product or service.
In other words, brands generate experiences and content tailored to the needs of consumers and share them for free through different communication channels – call these blogs, social networks, podcasts, videos, newsletters, tools, etc. – so that consumers find them when they need a certain solution and start interacting with the brand.
Key elements of the inbound methodology
There are many key elements for creating an inbound marketing strategy, but below I will mention those that are essential at the time of planning and without which you cannot start:
- buyer person
- Buyer journey
Now I am going to explain each concept in a simple way and its importance for inbound marketing.
buyer person
This is the profile of your ideal client. A it has fictitious characteristics that help define its context through its needs, frustrations, consumption habits and demographic data.
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Buyer journey
This is the path that consumers follow from the moment they have a need or problem, until they make a purchase. It is also known as the purchase cycle because it identifies the interactions that a potential customer makes with one or several brands and their different communication channels until they are convinced and make a purchase. Within this journey it goes through three stages: discovery, consideration and decision.
Although there are other important elements to implement the inbound methodology, such as the distribution channels of valuable content, these can be strategically defined, based on the needs of the buyer person and the research on the path that they would follow to reach the product or service that they offer. your brand.
Stages of inbound marketing
- Attraction
- Interaction
- Conversion
- Delight
Hubspot proposed a new scheme to exemplify the cycle that consumers follow within inbound marketing; an alternative to the traditional sales funnel: flywheel.
As can be seen from our interpretation of the fly wheel, the conversion can occur at any time, this will depend on the maturity of the user and the support that is given through valuable content. In the attraction stage, the conversion can result in a contact or subscriber, in the interaction stage, the conversion is more focused on converting those contacts into customers and in the delight stage, the objective is that those customers stay with the brand and keep buying.
Now, let’s dive a little deeper into each stage of the inbound methodology.
Attraction
In this stage, the aim is to capture the attention of people through valuable content that arises from the needs of the user. buyer person. The goal is to capture the interest of people who are not yet aware of the brand or solution that a company offers.
Different communication channels can be used such as: ads and digital advertising, video channels, blog articles – like the one you are reading – and, of course, social networks.
Some examples of valuable content are educational courses, tutorials on how to use products or tools, testimonials from satisfied customers, , blog articles with information on a specialized topic or that resolves frequently asked questions. Tactics such as organic content strategy in social networks are the pillar of this step in the inbound marketing.
Interaction
People who are already interested in a certain topic or product are closer to becoming customers, so it is important to provide them with the necessary tools so that they come into contact with your brand and their experience causes them to continue interacting.
At this point, what you are looking for is to obtain information that facilitates interaction and allows you to personalize both the content and the communication you have with this new lead. Automation is the key piece at this stage.
Tools such as chatbots, email marketing, attention on social networks, training courses and webinars, retargeting ads or are perfect to increase your contact base and communicate with those users interested in your content, product or service.
The ideal is to integrate a CRM like Hubspot to your website and online store to manage contacts, customers and abandoned carts. If you have Tiendanube you can .
Conversion
Conversion is the goal for any business, so providing solutions to the needs of consumers and the target market is essential, but also an effective experience when interacting with your brand before and after a purchase.
Therefore, a successful inbound marketing methodology will involve different areas of marketing and customer service, in addition to the call to action either pop up within your website or any communication and nutrition channel, they will be great allies to convince people to acquire what you offer.
It is a process that involves trust, brand reputation, user experience and many factors that will trigger a sale.
Delight
The post-purchase stage is also very important. The company that focuses on selling and neglecting after-sales is making a serious mistake because happy customers are one of the best sales tools and do not generate additional cost.
When a customer receives timely help, information to use the product or service they purchased and a satisfactory experience, they will increase the chances that they will talk about it with someone they know who has the same needs or that they will become a brand ambassador and a new channel. which will start the cycle again.
Automation tools are part of this stage as well, because they allow personalizing and contextualizing the following interactions that a customer has with the brand and strengthening that relationship. In addition, in this phase the content will have to be more specialized or focused on the difficulties of the acquired solution. Satisfaction surveys are also a form of constant improvement.
Benefits of inbound marketing
- Increased relevance as a source of information in the sector.
- Increased qualified traffic to the site, web page or online store.
- Organic growth of the database and qualified leads.
- Greater reach in various communication channels.
- Creation of a community interested in the brand.
- Strengthens brand recognition (brand awareness).
- Reduce investment costs.
- Lead nurturing automation.
Differences between outbound vs. inbound marketing
As I mentioned in the first lines of this article, the outbound marketing is a direct and aggressive strategy or, to put it another way, more proactive than inbound marketing.
The main difference is that an inbound strategy seeks to educate the consumer so that they end up buying a product or service that meets their needs, while an outbound strategy seeks to purchase per se, that is, it focuses on the product or service instead of focusing on the consumer.
Another big difference is that outbound can be a bit intrusive, since it uses communication channels that are generally massive and instead of seeking to attract customers, as inbound marketing does, it goes to them.
In outbound marketing there is no interaction with customers, communication is unidirectional, unlike the interaction that occurs in inbound marketing. Therefore, the messages or campaigns use persuasive language while an inbound methodology prioritizes informative language and persuasive language to a lesser extent.
The foregoing does not mean that one is good or bad, better or worse, but it is important to know in which scenarios each strategy should be used, since the mass media are more expensive, but an inbound strategy may be less immediate in terms of impact. refers.
Examples of inbound marketing with Tiendanube
SEO Strategy
The potential client has the need to sell more and performs a search on Google. Through educational and valuable content, you will get information from trusted sources. You can interact more or leave.
Free resources and materials
Another example of inbound marketing is when the need for information drives the user to perform an action, such as when they download a material that will help them meet their initial goal of selling more and interact with the brand because they give them their email to receive more information.
newsletter
A newsletter allows you to nurture the contact base through more valuable content that they receive in their email. The mails are more focused and despite the fact that the informative language continues to be used, the calls to actions are intensified and personalized, which increases the chances of conversion.
In conclusion
There is no better methodology than another in terms of outbound and inbound marketing, in most cases they complement and reinforce each other, but when you do not have the budget to start with both, it is necessary to analyze which one can bring better results and return on investment.
The inbound marketing has…
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